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ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

 
David Geek
Occasional Advisor

ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

I just bought a ML350 G6 with the "P410i Controller with HP 256MB P-series cache module upgrade" and six (6) "146GB 6G SAS 10K rpm SFF (2.5-inch) Dual Port Enterprise" hard drives.

I created a 1+0 volume with 2 drives and a Raid 5 volume with the remaining 4 drives. All drives show that they are connected at 6GBPS.

My disappointment is that when I run HDTune on the Raid 5 volume, it is only reading a max of 155 MB/Sec. I recently had a similarly configured Dell PE T610 read at over 250 MB/sec.

In the ACU, I have the Array Accelerator enabled on all drives and even tried enabling "Write Cache When Battery/Capacitor Not Present or Charged".

Has anyone figured out how to get +200 MB/Sec read speed out of this server???
(I did try a 1+0 array with the 4 drives and it only bumped me up to 180 MB/sec)

Thanks!
17 REPLIES 17
SMR
Valued Contributor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

Did you also purchase the battery and attach it to the cache module? Can you generate an ADU report?

Is HDTune running a read test or a write test?

good luck!
David Geek
Occasional Advisor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

The disk controller does not have the battery backup. I was wondering if this was the problem but would like someone who has worked with these servers to verify before I purchase it.

HD Tune was only reading, not writing.

Attached is ACU diagnostic report.

BTW - The server is running Windows Server 2008.
SMR
Valued Contributor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

Definetively buy the battery kit. Once you have it you need to set your read write cache ratio to 50/50 and test again, it will improve alot, you can then experiment on different configs and see what suits best for your config (25/75, 75/25)


From the adu report:

Total Controller Memory Size 256 MB (0x0100)
Percent Read Cache 100% (0x64)
Percent Write Cache 0% (0x00)
Default Percent Read Cache 100% (0x64)
Default Percent Write Cache 0% (0x00)
Installed Batteries 0x0000
David Geek
Occasional Advisor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

I got the battery backup and it had no affect on performance.
SMR
Valued Contributor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

Can you generate another ADU report now that you have the battery?

Maybe try a different benchmark?
Bleeder
Frequent Advisor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

From my experience, simply connecting the battery kit will not automatically enable the caching. I would double-check that the cache is really enabled.
David Geek
Occasional Advisor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

Attached is a copy of the ACU report.

I believe the cache is enabled, that it always has been, even before I put the battery in.

Again, it came with the Embedded P410i/256MB controller.
David Geek
Occasional Advisor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

SMR
What benchmark would you recommend?
Bleeder
Frequent Advisor

Re: ML350 G6 Disappointing Disk Read Speeds

Is advanced performance / write-caching also enabled in Device Manager, under Disk Drives, Policies tab for your raid disk?